All activities / Culinary / Cooking / Blue Mountains, Jamaica
Culinary / Cooking in Blue Mountains, Jamaica
The mist-wrapped range that rises above Kingston to Blue Mountain Peak at 2,256 metres, Jamaica's highest point. Cool, foggy slopes between about 900 and 1,700 metres grow the protected Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee, among the most prized and expensive in the world, on small estates reached by steep switchback roads through Irish Town, Section and Mavis Bank.
Why here
Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee is one of a handful of coffees in the world protected by name, and the misty ridges above Kingston are where it grows. The slopes between roughly 900 and 1,700 metres are almost permanently wrapped in cloud, so the cherries ripen slowly and develop the mild, clean, low-acid cup that made the name famous and pushed prices to among the highest anywhere. The best way to understand it is on a working estate rather than in a cafe: you walk the shaded rows on the steep hillsides, follow the bean through picking, pulping, fermentation, sun-drying and roasting, and taste the difference altitude and fog make in the cup. Two very different estates sit within an hour or so of the capital. Craighton, above Irish Town, pairs its coffee walk with a Georgian great house from 1805, while the Twyman family's Old Tavern, higher up near Section, is the estate that first won the right to process and sell its own single-estate Blue Mountain beans. For anyone who drinks coffee and wants to see where the world's most coveted beans come from, this is the source.
Best months
The coffee harvest runs roughly from September to February, the most active time to see picking and wet-milling, though the estates run tours year round. The mountains are cool and often wet, noticeably colder than the coast, so bring a layer and expect afternoon cloud and rain. Both estates ask you to book ahead: Old Tavern welcomes visitors strictly by prior arrangement, and Craighton runs set tour times by appointment. Roads up to the estates are steep, narrow and winding.
Getting there & around
The coffee belt starts about 40 minutes north of Kingston and climbs from there. Craighton Estate is just above Irish Town, roughly 35 to 45 minutes from the city, and is the easiest estate to reach. Old Tavern lies higher and further along the range near Section, past Hardwar Gap, on rougher road. A sturdy vehicle with good clearance, or an arranged transfer or guided tour, makes the drive far easier than a low rental car, and lets you combine one or two estates in a day.
Skill levels: beginner, intermediate
Schools & guides (2)
Craighton Estate
OutfitterCraighton Estate sits above Irish Town at about 2,600 feet, roughly 35 minutes from Kingston, a working Blue Mountain coffee farm wrapped around one of Jamaica's best-preserved Georgian great houses, built in 1805 by George Craighton. Since 1981 it has been owned by Japan's Ueshima Coffee Company, running as UCC Blue Mountain Coffee (Jamaica) Limited. Its roughly one-hour tour walks the plantation across some 80 acres, tours the antique-furnished house, and ends with a cup of estate coffee.
Old Tavern Coffee Estate
OutfitterOld Tavern Coffee Estate was planted around 1968 by Alex and Dorothy Twyman, Alex having moved to Jamaica from London's East End in 1958. High on the north side of the Blue Mountains near Section at about 4,000 feet, it was the first estate licensed to process and sell its own single-estate Blue Mountain coffee, grown, milled, roasted and packed by one family, and is among the few producing the rare peaberry. Visits run strictly by prior arrangement and end with a tasting.